The availability of various communication system networks has been increasing exponentially over the past decade. Among these networks are the conventional wired Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), packet-switched data networks such as the Internet, wireless satellite networks, and the like. The increased availability of these communication system networks provides opportunities and needs for enhanced information management among these networks.
Presently, subscriber services available to users of these networks are usually administered by a control center having access only to a particular communication network or group of networks. To access these subscriber services, a subscriber must often call a customer service representative or interact with an interactive voice response (IVR) system using a standard dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) telephone device. However, a subscriber may want to manage information flow without having to first access a call agent at the control center or to manage information flow outside the control center network. Accordingly, it would be advantageous for a user to be able to provision and invoke various services without having to be associated with a particular control center or be limited to a particular network or networks.
A user, also referred to herein as a subscriber, may want to manage information flow and access among his multiple communication devices. For example, multiple parties may attempt to contact a subscriber while the subscriber is actively involved in an ongoing call. For instance, a calling party may attempt to contact a subscriber on one end device, while the subscriber may only have access to another end device at the time the call is placed. In this case, it would be advantageous for a subscriber to be able to provision services so as to decide which end device or devices will receive an incoming call, and in what order. The subscriber would then be able to accept a call on any of the provisioned end devices from an incoming call from any network.
It would be advantageous, if a subscriber could perform functions or service features, such as directing incoming calls to multiple communication end devices, in accord with a predetermined profile information (such as the identity (phone number or internet address) and order of end devices to be contacted), regardless of the particular communication network with which the devices are associated.
Furthermore, it would be advantageous if a subscriber could self-provision such service features without having to first contact a customer service representative or wait for selected service features to be activated.